


The Beetle at Play

by Hijja



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BDSM, Consent Issues, F/F, Femslash, Sex Toys, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-07
Updated: 2011-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-23 12:47:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hijja/pseuds/Hijja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The title says it all, really...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beetle at Play

**Author's Note:**

> Written for McTabby's Unloved Ships Challenge, and beta-read by the lovely Kit.

**Warning:** kink, BDSM, toys, spanking, a touch of ambiguous consent

_________________________________

"Ouch, what-?"

Hermione stared up into Rita Skeeter's red-lipped smirk as the second silk cord snaked around her left wrist before knotting itself around the bedpost. It didn't cut her wrist, but when she pulled, it held fast.

"...what are you doing?" She finished in outrage, heat blooming in her cheeks.

"What?" Skeeter grinned, looking like a harpy about to descend on a rotting morsel. Her jewelled glasses sparkled. "Little Miss Know-it-all doesn't like to be bound? I'm not surprised. Well, let me tell you, I really didn't like being shut up in a jar either." Another toothy grin, before one red-painted fingernail scraped over the tip of Hermione's left breast encased in its white cotton bra.

A strangled "Eep!" escaped Hermione's mouth. She longingly eyed her robe, skirt and blouse folded over the headrest of a plush wing-backed armchair. The few scarlet pieces of furniture looked stark against white-washed walls. If it didn't made her feel like floating in a sea of blood, Hermione would have been impressed by the effect. It certainly reflected Skeeter's flamboyant style. And Hermione's own sensible white underwear fit in rather nicely with the crimson bedclothes. She blushed again.

Skeeter's hand trailed down along Hermione's hip, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Hermione fought the urge to squirm as the fingers played over the row of buttons at her left hip. Long nails dug into the soft skin of her thigh for a fleeting instance before the first button was undone. The fabric fell away and Rita twirled the knickers once around her index finger before tossing them on top of Hermione's clothes.

She studied Hermione's naked body thoughtfully, fingers carding through her pubic hair, tugging on an occasional curl. Hermione had the suspicion that her face had to be red enough to rival the bedspread. Even her ears were hot. Not even Viktor had ever been _this_ forward!

"Not too bad," Skeeter mused. "A bit too plump and wholesome for my taste, but nice enough."

Plump? Hermione glared in outrage. At least she _had_ hips and breasts, unlike Skeeter, who despite her large hands was downright bony. Her thinness was accentuated by the painted finger- and toenails, and the eye-catching green underwear.

Hermione felt a sting as the sharp nails grazed the crease of her hip, and worried about those nails in contact with the vulnerable flesh of her opening. But the woman's fingers did not wander lower, and Hermione forced herself not to shift her hips needfully. There _was_ something exciting about having no say in how one was being touched... Well, within limits.

But the reporter got up and began to rummage through the red-lacquered bedside drawers. At long last, she dug out two rolled-up lengths of silk, and threw them onto the bed next to Hermione's ankles. Reflexively, Hermione curled her toes inwards; but Skeeter just smirked down at her before picking up her wand again and flicking it at the stripes of silk. They began to unwind - white and bright green - and slithered aimlessly around on the bedspread. Skeeter narrowed her eyes and muttered a spell, and they began to wrap themselves around Hermione's ankles, first left, then right, before pulling her legs apart into a spread-eagled position.

Hermione squeaked as her cunt was exposed to Skeeter's condescending gaze, but she wasn't at all prepared for the second, more powerful tug that lifted her legs right off the bed, pulling them over her head in a tangle of silk and rolling her whole body back until her weight rested on her upper back, her face peering out, stunned, from between her spread thighs. Another gentle tug, and the ribbons bound her ankles to the bedposts next to her wrists.

Although the cords were broad and soft and most likely spelled with a cushioning charm to avoid cutting into Hermione's skin, the unnatural position put quite a strain on her back and neck muscles. Not to mention that it left her arse-up and spread out in the air and totally helpless in Rita Skeeter's hands. The woman chuckled remorselessly and squeezed one of Hermione's buttocks, pinching a bit of flesh rather cruelly before returning to the nightstand.

Hermione nervously craned her neck, wincing as a strand of hair snagged underneath her shoulder. Skeeter gave a satisfied hum and dumped a few somethings onto the bed where Hermione couldn't see.

"Mmh, yes... I had to wait quite a while until little Miss Perfect came of age and decided to seek me out again," the woman mused out loud.

"Wait for what?" Hermione squeaked, somewhat short of breath. She wasn't really sure she wanted an answer.

"Payback, Granger." There was a distinct note of satisfaction in the woman's voice, and irrationally, a sliver of heat ran through Hermione's lower body. "You locked me inside a bleeding _jar_ , ruined my career, forced me - me, Rita Skeeter, Special Correspondent for the DAILY PROPHET! - to write for the most pitiful rag in the magical community... Yes, I've been _very_ much looking forward to this!"

She rounded on Hermione's bound form, finally coming into sight caressing the handle of a saucer-sized wooden... thing that resembled a table tennis bat, only that it lacked the rubber padding. Hermione's breath caught. Surely the woman couldn't-

The flat wooden surface connected with her right buttock with a resounding smack that hurt her ears as much her flesh. Hermione yowled like a drenched cat. The short, sharp burn wasn't too bad, but it was humiliating! And surreal, like being suddenly banished into one of those trashy Victorian schoolboy novels she'd once stumbled across in the back of her parents' bedroom bookshelf.

The paddle came down on her left buttock in a perfect parallel, and this time she managed to keep her mouth shut and resort to a furious glare. Which, admittedly, lacked power from between spread legs and out of a beet-red face. Unsurprising that Skeeter remained blithely unimpressed. Instead, the woman grinned smugly and laid three more spanks onto the very same spot she'd just hit. The triple impact did not just leave a sting - it _hurt_ in a way that had tears welling up in Hermione's eyes and left her wriggling against the cords. Which had to look pathetic at best, and downright obscene at worst.

"Not so perfect now, Miss Prissy?" Skeeter mocked and turned the bat to run the handle along the outmost folds of Hermione's nether lips. To her mortification, Hermione lifted herself up a fraction to meet the touch of the smooth wood. Compared to her stinging behind, it was rather pleasant.

"And not so prissy any more either," Skeeter commented, scorn dripping from the scarlet lips as she gripped the handle again after making a show out of wiping it on the coverlet. "But not quite yet." The woman ran a finger along the soft skin where Hermione's hip met thigh. "Maybe later."

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut and tensed as she saw Skeeter raise her arm, standing slightly with her legs spread for balance. A flurry of smacks descended on her exposed rear, from the backs of her thighs, where they made low, meaty sounds, to her buttocks, where the impact resounded more sharply.

There was no languorous, near-pleasant heat to this kind of punishment, only biting, inescapable _pain_. Hermione writhed in her bonds, trying to get away from the unforgiving paddle that seemed to land unerringly on the most tender spots. Spread as wide as she was, it grazed her outer folds more than once, which left her desperate to close her legs and curl into a ball. Tears spilled over, running into her mouth and onto the pillow. She could feel her nose starting to run and sniffled madly in between sobs. Her whole backside was blazing, and trying to struggle out of a position that resembled a beetle turned on its back put an agonising strain on her muscles, from neck to calves.

She knew that, being Gryffindor, she should at least try to suffer stoically, but this wasn't battle, where you could fight back. It was just too humiliating - too _painful_ \- to keep the tears from flowing and the cries from her lips. She only realised she was babbling - begging - when the sound of wood smacking skin ceased, leaving her choked voice loud in the quiet.

She nearly sobbed again with relief when the woman put the paddle down on the bed, but then Skeeter's hand came up to squeeze her aching rear, rubbing and pinching. It hurt, but not as bad as the paddle had. She sniffled miserably and tried to shift her bottom out of the way, but to no avail. Skeeter just laughed at her feeble wriggling and kept examining her marks with fingers and nails.

"I think I like you better this way," Skeeter sneered. "A bit more... domesticated." Hermione bit her lip to suppress the retort the woman deserved - the paddle was still within reach.

Skeeter leaned forward and summoned yet another contraption from her nightstand drawer, and Hermione tensed even as her mouth fell open. It looked like... well, shaped in the form of a man's... bits, only oversized in a way that would have killed any wizard trying to mount a broom. Or wear ordinary trousers, really. Into the smooth surface the outline of a wizard was carved, the... head, Hermione supposed, taken up by a lewdly grinning face.

"Pretty, isn't it?" Skeeter asked conversationally. "You can pick up a lot of interesting things in the outskirts of Knockturn Alley."

She ran a finger over the carved surface before bringing it up between Hermione's spread legs. Hermione gasped, torn between fear and the fact that it touched something rather pleasant as the woman swirled it around once, twice.

"Hm..." Skeeter purred, probing next to the hard... thing with a finger. "Rather wet for a prissy, uptight ex-schoolgirl, aren't you, Granger?"

Fire flooded Hermione's cheeks, spreading right down to her neck and chest while the infernal woman chuckled. Then Skeeter swirled the phallus again, pressing it ever-so-slightly deeper between Hermione's folds. Not enough to hurt, not _yet_ , but Hermione tensed in fear. It made her inner walls twitch, bringing the responsive spot inside her in contact with the smooth length again and tore a harsh gasp out of her. She could feel the carved surface of the toy's ridges rubbing the inner folds of her labia. Another twist of Skeeter's wrist sunk it even deeper inside her, and this time Hermione felt rather than anticipated the strain against the barrier inside her.

"Stop!" she moaned, trying for a steady voice but only achieving a strangled sob. "Oh, please, stop!" Tears welled up in her eyes again as she struggled against the bonds around her arms and legs for real.

"What _is_ it, Granger?" Skeeter snapped impatiently, running the tip of a finger over Hermione's clitoris.

But even the trickle of pleasure running up her spine could not calm Hermione's panic. That wasn't the way she wanted to-

"Don't," she pleaded. "I've never-" She fell silent, tears of shame running down her cheeks at the woman's muffled oath. Skeeter swung her legs off the bed and came around to stare into her face where it peered out from between wide-spread legs. She left the phallus sticking up from Hermione's cunt like King Arthur's sword abandoned in the stone. The sight stoked Hermione's mortification to new heights. Skeeter stared at her with an incredulous expression, tugging on a rigid blond curl.

"Are you trying to tell me you're a _virgin_ , Granger?" Her voice had an offended whine to it. "You? Hogwarts' very own Scarlet Woman?"

No matter how much Hermione wanted to tell the woman exactly what she thought of that kind of sexism, the thought of the paddle and the thing between her legs convinced her to settle for a meek if tight-lipped nod.

"What in sweet Merlin's name did you _do_ with Krum and Potter?"

Hermione's mouth thinned even more. "I was too young to do _anything_ with Viktor," she hissed. "And Harry's my friend, not my boyfriend!"

"And then you come to me without experience or anything?" Skeeter sounded put-upon and brushed a fleeting caress to the underside of Hermione's left breast before tapping fingers lightly - and with a mock-pensive expression - against the toy embedded in Hermione's cunt. It sent tremors through her whole lower body. "And they say Gryffindors aren't stupid?" Hermione bit her lip and said nothing.

"All right, then." Skeeter sighed, and gripped the thing, and pulled it out with only a slight show of effort.

Leaning in, she brought the carved form to Hermione's lips. It glittered wet all around the upper half as if the carved wizard had been caught in a downpour. Hermione experimentally swiped her tongue over one carved cheek. The smell and taste was less disgusting than she'd expected. Slimy, granted, and slightly salty, but quintessentially familiar. Skeeter did not relent until she'd licked every bit of herself off the thing, then flung it carelessly back into its drawer.

"Well, let's settle for something that won't damage your... virtue, then," the woman drawled, giving Hermione a malicious wink that made her stomach contents flop. Her dread mounted as something small and black whizzed into Skeeter's hand. A muttered spell shortened the cords around her ankles, pulling her legs apart painfully wide. Cool fingers grabbed and parted Hermione's buttocks, and then something pressed against her anus - first hard, then slippery, and then suddenly inside her aching channel in one twist. She shrieked out loud and frantically squeezed against the intrusion, but it stuck fast, smooth and burning and unforgiving and pushing her open just so.

"Self-lubricating," Skeeter announced smugly. "Nice, isn't it?

Face purple with heat, Hermione made a hissing nose, like Crookshanks when someone had accidentally stepped on his tail. "You bloody-" She gasped audibly as the woman pressed against the end of the plug still sticking out from her red arse.

"Quiet, girl. You better be polite unless you're aching for another round. Do you want down or not?" She flicked the thing again, making it flare inside Hermione.

Hermione gulped. "Yes."

"What did I say about politeness, Granger?"

"Yes, _please_ ," Hermione amended quickly, seething inwardly. But the cramps in her neck and back were starting to _kill_ her.

"Better," Skeeter conceded, and waved her wand at the cords around Hermione's ankles with a curt, "Relashio!"

Hermione groaned with relief as the cords let go, fluttering innocently down onto the pillow. Her joints screeched as she rolled her hips down, but not enough not to feel the walls of her anus constricting snugly around the plug inside her, making the intrusion ten times more noticeable. Her groan nearly morphed into a full-blown scream when her abused rear came in contact with the mattress. It stung so much that she wondered for a moment if she'd been spanked bloody. But no - the hurt was sharp, but dry. Almost worse, the flared end of the plug was pressed deeper into her arse as her weight pressed it down on the bed. She tried to curl into a ball as far as the remaining cords around her wrists allowed, but Skeeter's sharp nail poking into her side disabused her of the notion.

"Lie still," the woman ordered, "unless you want me to flip you over and give you another dozen on that red little arse of yours."

Hermione forced herself to obey. As soon as she lay prone like a crucified snow angel, Skeeter lifted her hand. "Accio quill!"

The reporter's garish Quick Quotes Quill rose elegantly from the top of the - red - writing desk by the door, and flew into Skeeter's hand with practiced ease. Hermione blinked. Skeeter wasn't going to pen a diatribe on the sexual depravities of Hogwarts' alumni now with the example tied up in front of her, was she?

But Skeeter just ran the plume over Hermione's throat, causing a soft tickle that Hermione desperately wanted to attend to with her nails. The plume slid further down over the top of her right breast, then delved into the crease below where it dragged on the beads of sweat that had formed during Hermione's struggles. Then it trailed right up to catch at her nipple. Hermione gasped as the feather brushed the tiny nub into a rose-coloured peak. It wasn't just her nipple that tightened. A strange sensation flooded the neglected place between her legs as if the two were intimately connected.

The light, maddening brush over sensitive flesh had Hermione squirming and fretting in no time; the touches made her breast tingle all over, the aureole more pronounced pink than before. Gooseflesh broke out all over her front, and she made a little protesting noise as the feather moved to her other breast. How could such tiny brushes _itch_ so much?

Hermione whimpered and flinched when Skeeter turned the quill to trace a stinging line along the underside of the breast she was tormenting. Thankfully, the tip had been cleaned of ink traces, and although it felt sharp enough to cut, it left behind only a pink line. Skeeter flipped the quill, alternating between teasing brushes with the plume, and stinging nips with the tip until Hermione was shaking and covered in sweat. Her nipples were and angry red and felt as if they were going to burst.

And yet she sobbed as Skeeter ran the tip of the quill down between her breasts and swirled it once, twice around her bellybutton, far less carefully than she'd wielded it on Hermione's chest. It left a visible red line - and circle - that looked as if she'd been using ink after all.

Skeeter smiled and laid the quill on Hermione's lower belly, tip pointing towards her bushy brown triangle, before reaching up to undo her own bra. Her breasts tumbled forward, smaller than Hermione's round, generous ones, with larger, brownish aureoles where Hermione was overwhelmingly pink. They sagged quite a bit though, Hermione observed with a quiver of satisfaction she carefully kept off her face. When reporter stood to pull off her knickers, revealing a reddish thatch of pubic hair, the quiver transformed into triumphant vindication. A bottle-blonde - hah!

Last, Skeeter removed her winged glasses before picking up the quill from Hermione's belly again and running the feathery end a couple of times over the hardening nubs of her own breasts. The bed dipped as she sat back down beside Hermione's hip, and Hermione was extremely aware of the warm press of skin where their bodies touched.

"Spread your legs," Skeeter ordered softly, and although the thought left Hermione hot all over - the woman would _see_ what the quill's assault had done to the spot between her legs. But then it was too late in the day to deny that she wanted Skeeter to touch her there. She opened her legs obediently, but not obscenely wide.

Instead of hands, however, it was merely the quill tip that made its way downwards, from Hermione's lower belly sideways through the sweaty crease where hip met thigh, wandering with a long, spine-curving scrape along the inside of her left thigh, before the sting was soothed with a few gentle brushes of the plume.

Hermione quivered as the tender skin turned a patchy red under the ministrations, and groaned as the quill tip detoured to scratch the inside of her knee. She pushed her pelvis up a bit to indicate the source of her suffering. She could feel the squelching wetness between her legs, and her clit seemed to thrum with every brush and scrape of the quill; her eyes were watering with frustration.

The first feathery brush over her clitoris made her whimper. It felt so good and teasing and not _enough_ all the same, so she let her legs fall open a bit more, dignity be damned. The plume tickled her again, and this time she had to bite back a throaty plea. The feathers set her cunt afire, leaving her shivering and moaning.

Skeeter's free hand reached between her legs, stroking along the soft skin between her opening and her plugged arse, playing with the flared end of the plug for a delicious moment before murmuring, "Engorgio!"

Hermione screamed as the thing... swelled. Under the quill's caresses, it had become almost possible to ignore it, almost pleasurable; but now it stretched her further, tight and burning almost at the threshold of pain. Hermione bore down on it with all her might, aware of the painful stretch, to gain more of the distracting sweet poison of the quill on her clit. It did not help, only produced a deep, flaring heat in her arse that fuelled her arousal. She whimpered again, spread out and wet and _full_ , raising her hips in a primal rhythm without caring a whit about how it pushed the plug deeper and deeper inside her.

And then she stilled, wide-eyed, as Skeeter turned the quill again to graze the outer folds of her labia with the sharp end. The mere thought of feeling that sting on her over-stimulated clit sent hot and cold shivers down her back. If it touched her there, she'd probably explode.

"No - please," she breathed, and there was something... seductive in lying there at another's mercy, helpless and trembling and begging...

Skeeter studied her bright-eyed, and turned the quill between her fingers. "No?"

"No," Hermione confirmed, even though something mad inside her wanted to feel the sting, and the surge of sensations that would come in its wake.

"What do you want, then?" The woman stroked Hermione's unmarked thigh without taking eyes of her face, the same casual way one would pet a kitten.

Hermione licked her lips helplessly. She _wanted_ , but could not form the words in her mind, even less with her lips. And yet Skeeter's expression left no doubt that she wouldn't make any move until she had an answer, and Hermione's body burned for completion.

"I want you to fuck me, Rita." The obscenity slid off her tongue like the salty burst of biting into a fresh olive.

"Very good," the woman whispered and crawled onto the bed, swinging one leg over to crouch above Hermione's hips, their groins only inches apart.

Then she put her hands on Hermione's breasts, palms crushing down over inflamed nipples, kneading the soft flesh - not cruel, but firmly. If Hermione had thought Skeeter's hands - like her jaw, really - were too large for the woman's thin body, she changed her mind just now. They felt _right_ on her breasts, massaging the feather-stings and scrapes out of yielding flesh, squeezing in a way that was blissfully soothing. Hermione let her head fall back onto the pillow, wrists lax in their bonds for the first time, her hips twitching in sync with the movement of Skeeter's fingers.

When the woman sank down onto her, her weight on Hermione's groin sent white-hot sparks into her brain. Skeeter was wet, if not as much as Hermione, and the slippery glide of thighs and folds twinned against each other was to strong, too much. Hermione bucked helplessly, but Skeeter's sharp knees dug into her hips and brought her back to a semblance of control.

Hermione clawed at the cords around her hands as the woman started to rock against her, first slowly, then with more force, a heady mix of slickness and friction that left her biting her lips and moving against Skeeter's body with mounting urgency, writhing and gladly renouncing whatever shred of pride she'd been able to hold on to. This was worth surrender!

Skeeter let go of her breasts and grabbed her chin with one hand, forcing Hermione to look right into her face as she brought her other hand between their bodies, worming into the tight, wet space where their cunts meshed, rubbing them both in tiny, insistent circles. The reporter's face was pink too, curls tangling damp and frizzy around the heavy-jawed face.

Hermione felt the slick finger circling her clit, over and over until her breath almost stopped. Something inside her spine wound itself tight, her brain a sharp coil of want, and all focus reduced to the interplay of nub and finger... Her nails dug into her palm as the rush overtook her, blinding and sharp, too overwhelming to scream as her body tensed to the point of agony before going limp in a sprawl that seemed to go beyond the mere physical, as if her mind was lying down along with her body, making the fact that Skeeter had watched her expression through the ripping throes of orgasm the most unimportant thing on the planet.

Hermione sprawled still and breathless as the woman continued to ride her, knees digging into her hips in a way that Hermione registered but didn't feel, that finger was working herself now until she sunk forward with a sharp exhale of breath, blond curls almost brushing Hermione's mouth. Skeeter shuddered, and Hermione could see the tiny hairs at her nape stand up.

The woman remained there for a long, breathless moment before gasping for air and sitting up, self-consciously brushing her curls back and moving off Hermione's body in a quick motion as if to distance herself from pleasure as much as from the source of it. She wobbled on her feet before regaining her balance. The look that grazed Hermione was trying to express superiority, but was belied by the high colour of Skeeter'sr face and the quick rise and fall of her chest. She picked up her glasses, shoving them on her nose like a shield, then reached for her wand and cast a cleaning charm that took away sweat and glistening wetness at her groin.

"Not bad, Granger," she taunted, breathless. "With a bit of practice, you might end up an entertaining plaything."

"And of course you're doing this to everybody who crosses you." Hermione realised she sounded peevish, but what the heck - she had a _right_ to!

"Not quite," the woman chuckled. "I wouldn't meet a single deadline if I did. Only to those who are responsive."

"I'm not responsive!"

Skeeter sneered and waved the wand over Hermione's bound form with another cleaning charm. It felt distinctly unpleasant on Hermione's sensitive skin. Two more "Relashio!" removed first the plug from her arse - which left her feeling uncomfortable and strangely empty - and then the cords from her hands.

"You're prime material even, Granger," Skeeter replied blithely. "Always wanting to know everything, to do everything, to be on top of everything... No wonder it excites you if someone ties you up and takes you in hand." That horrible amused look was back again. "Believe me, I know."

"I wasn't excited by _that_ ," Hermione screeched, very flustered. She managed to pull herself into a sitting position, still glaring, clenching her buttocks just to make sure she could and rubbing her aching wrists.

"You could have fooled me," Skeeter shrugged and summoned her robe into her hand without bothering with underclothes. "You certainly came hard enough."

Floundering, Hermione limped over to the chair with her clothes and hid her chest behind her bra. Her nipples were still sensitive and smarted against the soft material.Calm, she told herself. Concentrate on business. She had her features back under rigid control as she looked up.

"You have the papers?" she asked and grabbed her blouse.

Skeeter walked to the bedside drawer, oblivious to Hermione's flinch, and pulled a green folder from the top drawer. "A collection of published anecdotes on proposed Founder artefacts since 1930 - courtesy of Rita Skeeter and the DAILY PROPHET archives." She waved the folder, then tossed it to Hermione, who had to let go of her sleeve button to catch it.

"Am I right to assume that this has to do with the "Chosen One's" fight against You Know Who the Ministry is so interested in?" Skeeter asked, her glasses flashing. On the desk, the discarded quill quivered with excitement.

Hermione hugged the envelope to her chest. "We agreed on absolute confidentiality, Rita! If word gets out that we're interested in those stories-"

"-it will be the end of the wizarding world as we know it and I'll end up with a face not even a goblin mother could love, like that poor daughter of Edgecombe's." The reporter avidly watched Hermione step into her skirt and pulling on the zipper with the file still tucked under her arm. It certainly had to be unsatisfied curiosity that made her stare so.

Hermione put the folder on the desk and contemplated the plush red stuffing of the chair for a moment, before discarding the idea. It would take hours before sitting down would become a viable option again.

She slid the sheaf of parchments out of the folder, scanning them with mounting excitement. A faded note from a 1947 society page entry caught her interest. It reported that the only thing missing from the townhouse of Madam Hepzibah Smith - victim of a ghastly poison accident - was an antique golden cup, and a locket believed to have belonged to Salazar Slytherin... She smirked, and picked up another parchment onto which someone had spilled what looked like fermented pumpkin juice.

"The Marchbanks family really claimed to have owned a self-portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw?" She flipped through the follow-up page.

Skeeter nodded, tipping the end of her quill against her bottom lip in a way that made Hermione blush.

"Yes - Griselda Marchbanks even called in Magical Law Enforcement when the painting couldn't be found among her brother's possessions after his death." The corner of her mouth curved down. "Honestly, it was an open secret that old Gilbert had pawned the thing off to some shady shop to raise the galleons for a Granian stud." She looked at Hermione. "That's a Winged Horse."

Hermione nodded impatiently. "I know - it's in FANTASTIC BEASTS."

"Miss Know-it-all, how could I forget." Skeeter scowled. "He fancied himself a breeder of racing Granians, and then his new prize stud trampled him to death over the lack of compatible mares in his stable. The painting itself never turned up." She shrugged. "Probably ended up with some eccentric collector."

Hermione could feel a smile spreading over her face from mouth to eyes. A painting by Ravenclaw, _of_ Ravenclaw, vanished in the early 1950s... it practically screamed 'Horcrux'. Harry would be so happy. And he'd _stay_ happy unless he ever found out what had happened in exchange for that juicy bit of information. She could see a frown deepening on Skeeter's face as the woman observed her elation.

"What _is_ so important about ancient thieveries, anyway?" she inquired. "If it has to do with You-Know-Who, the wizarding public certainly has a right to know." Behind her, the much-abused quill positioned itself over a spare piece of parchment with an expectant flourish.

Hermione smiled even more broadly. She stepped right up to the frowning reporter, took her face into both hands and kissed her very soundly on the mouth. She did not pull back particularly fast either. Before Skeeter could recover, she'd swept the cuttings into her pocket, shrugged into her robe, and had her hand on the door handle. Revenge was sweet indeed.

"You'll be much safer not knowing, Rita."

  
_~ finis ~_   


**Author's Note:**

> Written in March 2006


End file.
